Randy Klinger

Thirteen years ago Randy Klinger, artist and teacher, held a vision for a creative arts centre. He had a very particular vision: Uplifting the Soul and Spirit through beauty, to help people regain their sensation of beauty physically, so that we, as a culture, move into the next Golden Age. He says:

“I wanted people to be able to engage with art in its many forms, the aim being to raise their curiosity and inspire them to an intellectual appreciation of art and the significance of beauty in their own lives – art as an ‘anti-depressant.

Only this high dream existed and a ‘promise’ that all would be fulfilled. To start, we had nothing; no money, no land, no skills. All else was added through the practice of the spiritual principles of: Trust, Abundance Consciousness and Manifestation. We now have an award-winning ecologically-designed building able to borrow great works of art internationally, bring benefit to over 15,000 people annually, services to nearly 3,000 young people, many experiencing multiple deprivation, substance misuse and homelessness and, above all, bringing a sense of awe and upliftment, the aesthetic orgasm, the incredible fulfilment that comes through accessing beauty, in order to create a major cultural shift – from banality and depression, to beauty and upliftment.”

If you know Randy, as I do, he is amazingly inspiring when he talks about this dream of his come true – you can’t help but get infected by his enthusiasm. But he held this dream for a long time before it actually began to come into being. This is why holding your vision is so important, and one of the qualities of being a RichThinker, because without that vision, it is too easy to be swayed off course by all sorts of distractions.

Probably the UK’s first carbon-neutral purpose built art centre, Moray Art Centre is a service-based social enterprise, whose aims are to question, explore and find the highest beauty of our time. Randy’s dream of people having access to exhibitions of great works of art, and being able to participate in lectures, seminars and workshops in an innovative and inspiring centre has become true.

The building of the Moray Art Centre was on-time, on-spec and exactly on-budget, and the vision was so inspiring that the building contractors, Ivan Russell Construction Ltd of Elgin, donated the copper-covered entrance canopy as an in-kind sponsorship to their own client! In total, the £1,080,000 project has raised over £980,000 for capital and revenue funds, with over 55% of the funding coming from private individuals inspired by the centre’s vision. I remember Randy saying he had signed the contract with the builder to start building when he knew that only the first half of the money to pay him was there. He had to have enormous amounts of faith – and along with that often goes enormous amounts of fear too, as Randy will be the first to testify.

“I used to cycle my daughter to school in the morning, consciously being in fear of all the things that could go wrong, that weren’t happening, that I was concerned about. And then on the way home, I would direct my mind to think of all the good things that were happening, and keep focused on those during my day, ” says Randy.

This is why Randy is a RichThinker, and why I am proud he is one of my colleagues. He actively took the inner and outer actions necessary to have his dream come true, and continues to do so. Read more about the Moray Arts Centre here.